Title: Smile

Prompt: 12. I don't believe in tomorrows

Fandom: baccano

Character: Chane, Claire

Summary: She has so many gifts these days.

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She has a closet now, a large storage space stuffed with clothes and shoes. They're lined up neatly, side by side, on hangers and shoe racks and piled on top of shelves.

He likes to buy her clothes. Sometimes jewellery or flowers, maybe even books or small figurines appear in boxes, carefully stacked at the foot of the bed when she wakes up. He watches her intently, a broad smile on his lips and a gleam to his eyes as she slowly unwraps them.

Every time she comes upon the sight of these boxes, packaged in bright red or orange or blue, she feels a shock of surprise. Her face still doesn't show it—doesn't show much of anything.

She wonders how long it will take before she becomes accustomed to the sight. How long it takes before she smiles openly every time.

It doesn't really matter though. When she glances at him, he seems to know already what her voice can no longer express.

For some reason—and perhaps this is something she'll learn in time, in late nights and early mornings and the calm in-between—he smiles even broader after she's finished.

"Happy Anniversary."

A proper event, then. Throughout this courtship he has never really needed an event or particular date to do something. He just does it because he feels like it, because he thinks she needs it.

Maybe, on some subconscious level, she does.

Extracting the dress, it's a violet colour, like the dark tulips resting in the vase beside her bed. He brought those for her three days ago, just when the old ones started to die. The dress is made of a light material; summer is arriving and the heat has already started to rise.

Her most worn outfits, though, are still the ones her father gave her.

(She knows this, just as Claire does, that she will always place her father first. Before Claire, before herself, before anyone else.)

"Do you like it?"

She glances at the dress once more, at the lace and taffeta hanging off it. It's beautiful, as always—he has a good taste in clothing, she's come to realize. She's come to notice a lot of things about him and she wonders if this is what it means to grow used to someone.

"Rachel," She has met her exactly four times, this mysterious woman Rachel. Has met her and her peculiar way of thinking and thinks that she might get along with Nice and Jacuzzi and that gang that visits her for no reason. "thought I should stop giving you only bright colours."

She nods, looking at him, and his hands clasp hers firmly.

"You smiled."

She supposes she did.